Doctor Doom walks into a bar
Ouch, iron bar.
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the X-box 360
Disclaimer: This ‘review’ was written after one session of M:UA and is therefore constructed from little more than initial impressions. There may also have been a beer-associated-increased-enjoyment factor so please adjust you reading of it accordingly (or simply play the game drunk). Thank you.
When CL! and I sat down to play Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the first time it was, for me at least, a step into the unknown having never read or heard anything about the game before seeing it on the retailer’s shelf. Half expecting some sort of trite Tekken Clone, with the likes of Cyclops destroying all comers with some sort of cheap “blast you endlessly from the other side of the screen with my overpowered eye-laser” move, I took the controller in hand. However, what I found and what took with complete surprise, was the simplistic joy that the multiplayer game offers.
For those like me (perhaps with Retrogamer subscriptions keeping them abreast of all the gaming news that was hitting headlines two decades ago), who are not in the know, I’ll elaborate. The multiplayer game has you cooperating with the other players, choosing up to four characters from a large pool of Marvel superheroes (including the rubbish ones) and deploying them to fight off what seems like the entire Marvel universe of supervillans (including the rubbish ones). At its core it’s really a superhero themed, 3-d version of Final Fight. Lots of potential for smashing heads, lots of minion heads to smash. However, when played it’s more than just that, the effort that’s gone into it makes it just that little bit special.
All the characters have special abilities that are gained or improved as you earn experience from all of the head smashing taking place and so there’s a slight RPG element to the proceedings making the game feel a little deeper than a straight forward punch-up. The key to its success though comes from the fact that for once the superhero characters actually play like superheroes. When you fight, the character feels like he is half-man, half-spider or does have a metal endoskeleton, or was irradiated in space. So if you choose a character like Colossus you’re able to go toe to toe with the minions, if you wish, or simply pick them up and start hurling them about; or using them to smack the hell out of their comrades; or the surroundings; or all of the above.
For all the choices of superhero and all the techniques available to learn, it’s still the little details that’ll have you chuckling and grinning like a mental: the camp poses Thor pulls when he’s flying; the way you’ll inevitably enter cutscenes carrying a foe from a previous fight in one mighty hand; spotting the special tactics that arise when you use certain combinations of superheroes; the joy of encountering the dregs of the supervillan world and dispatching them in a way that involves throwing as many minions off balconies as possible.
It has its flaws of course, the camera can make climbing ladders and overcoming similar obstacles awkward for those characters unable to fly. The computer controlled members of your team tend to suffer from FOADTOTS*, rather than helping you out, but to be honest, you’re a superhero and should be able to handle yourself in a fight anyway, right? These really are minor gripes and most of the time you’ll be too busy trying to use wee guys you’ve just grabbed to bust open doors (and pointing out to your friends that you’re doing it) to notice.
Score: A “laugh a minute supervillan pounding romp� out of 10
*Fuck off and do their own thing syndrome